


Only True Crime

by Ael_tRlailiiu



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, Loss, Mentions of Death, Suicide Attempt, and disturbing canon events
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-29
Updated: 2013-01-29
Packaged: 2017-11-27 10:27:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/660893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ael_tRlailiiu/pseuds/Ael_tRlailiiu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A drabble on the Avengers and loss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only True Crime

_Theft was the only crime, whether the loot was gold, innocence, land or life. Terry Pratchett_

 

 

She knows betrayal. Her cool green eyes have been the last to look on oh, so many men. Women. Children. She sits in the dark, and her legs will not hold her. Not her ankle, but her entire body refuses her. The weapon on which she has built her life, the steel line she walks so surely, shudders now and fractures, useless in her shaking hands.

“ _Does anybody copy?”_

***

Breathing is almost too much work already. He will die soon and with this shock still running through his bones, a malicious arpeggio, and he is briefly, fiercely glad of the splintered piano. How long has this been planned, how much longer has it been wanted, how much longer will it take.

_Pepper._

***

He watches Coulson slip away, as he has watched so many people go too soon. He already knows what he will do, that he will regret it, that it will be worth this price. Natasha is not the only one to keep accounts.

***

He has known no surcease of rage and grief, not since his father told him Loki lived. Here in this cage there is silence, challenge and answer in a look alone. There are no words to speak. He is metal and fire, and beneath him is only changeable air, where his brother's mastery lies, and they already know that gods can die.

***

Bruce denies remembering a time when things were other than they are, before the ember of rage first grew within him, and that as much as anything else mingles now with the taste of metal. He is soft, and the gun is unyielding, and this is only one more obscene intimacy.

***

He cannot sleep, so he reads all night, faster as the hours wear by, the words blurring, the paper and computer screens smearing into a colorless whole. The city begins to wake up around him. The sounds are wrong. No milk bottles, no newspapers to mark the dawn. The rough-handed men who build things speak different languages than they used to, and the greengrocers' trucks carry things he can't name. He wants to ask, _was it worth it._

**Author's Note:**

> One of those things that jumped into my head almost fully formed, with the thought that however experienced we may be, there is some form of innocence yet to be taken.
> 
> The only one I could think of for Clint was too obvious. Sorry, Hawkeye, hope you get more screen time in the future.


End file.
